LCR22870

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00031014 (CA-00041200-001)

BACKGROUND:

The Employee appealed the Adjudication Officer’s Recommendation to the Labour Court on 11 April 2023 in accordance with Section 13(9) of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969.

On 3 March 2023 the Adjudication Officer issued the following Recommendation:

“I endorse all of the recommendations of the independent report (subject to what follows) and recommend that both parties accept them all and in full as putting a final end to the issues that gave rise to this referral. I recommend that the sums to compensate for what was described as ‘General Damages’ and ‘Loss of Opportunity Cost’ in the independent report should be increased by €12,500 and €7,500 respectively.”

A Labour Court hearing took place on 27 October 2023.

DECISION:

Background

This is an appeal by the Worker of Recommendation ADJ-00031014 of an Adjudication Officer in respect of the Worker’s on-going complaints following his return to work in March 2012 on foot of a High Court Judgment. The Adjudication Officer endorsed the recommendations of the independent report subject to increasing the compensation for what was described as General damages and loss of opportunity by €12,500 and €7,500 respectively.

Summary of Worker’s submission 

The Complainant has attempted since he returned to work in 2012 to resolve issue with his Employer.  This has included getting involved with mediation which resulted in a report being issued on 9th September 2014 and a complaint to the WRC. It is the Workers submission that he has been left without a clearly defined resourced, working role. The Worker submits that in the past he has looked for his role to be linked to the Employer’s mission statement, but this has been refused. Over the years under performance assessment, he has been graded at the lowest grading which he has appealed to an independent person appointed to hear the appeal but, on each occasion, the independent person just confirmed that the process followed by his line manager was fine. There was some discussion about a seconded role but that never came to pass. The Worker submitted that as recent as March 2023 he has had no work objectives set and that his line manager has not spoken to him at all this year. The Worker is looking for the Labour Court to compensate him for losses which he believes exceeds €600,000.     
     

Summary of Employer’s submission

The Employer wishes to resolve the issues and has tried to do so over the years. The Employer is willing to implement the Mediators report as amended by the Adjudication Officer. The issues in respect of the Workers performance assessment and the setting of work objectives are difficult to resolve in a never-ending circle of appeals when job objectives are set.  To date when work objectives have been set the Worker has objected to same so the next step of putting in place performance measures to achieve same has never been reached.  The Employer wishes to resolve this dispute with the Worker, and it believes it has applied all procedures fairly and that there are no outstanding issues other than those which were dealt with in the 2014 Mediator’s report which it is prepared to implement.

Discussion

As outlined by the Court in the course of the hearing this case is before it under the Industrial Relations Act and is therefore about a dispute between a Worker and their Employer. Resolution of Industrial relations issues don’t necessarily involve compensation and certainly not in the nature of the compensation being sought by the Worker in this case.  The Court notes the commitment of both parties to bring finality to the outstanding issues. This will require drawing a line in the sand, looking forward and not back. The Mediator in his report in 2014 mapped out a path forward which the Court believes subject to the amendments made to the financial elements by the Adjudication Officer is the appropriate way to resolve this dispute.      

Decision

The Court having taken into consideration the written submissions and oral submissions on the day of the hearing believes the path forward lies in the Mediator’s report of 2014. The Court upholds the decision of the Adjudication Officer. The appeal fails.

The Court so decides.    

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Louise O'Donnell
AR	______________________
21/11/23	Deputy Chairman